Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Amish diamond mini quilt

One of the blogs I follow is the Purl Bee. It's a store in NYC and online, but they publish fantastic free tutorials for knitting, crocheting, embroidering, sewing, quilting--almost any fiber craft you can think of. Each month this year they have come up with a new mini quilt project. Some of them feel a little above my skill level, others don't really speak to me. But along came October: the Amish diamond. It was challenging enough to be interesting (rather than daunting). And luckily I was almost two months late with Theresa's birthday present.

Now I know it's not perfect. It's not even square. But this little quilt is full of firsts for me: my first time making my own binding, my first time piecing so that corners line up, and my first time "stitching in the ditch." And for all the new ground I covered, I am satisfied with the results. Proud even.

And my corners came out good. Nice and cornery. Mitered. I was deliberating over the binding color, so I asked Robb, "Contrast? Or matchy-matchy?" Holding up some reddish and some greenish fabrics. "Contrast." He was right.

The different patterns and colors came together well, too. I was thinking of it as a flower garden. With birds fluttering around but not in a Hitchcock sort of way.

It was completed over the course of several evenings after Mo's bedtime. Hope Theresa likes it! Although I also sent her and Rick 2.5G of baby pictures and videos on a thumb drive--the MO DRIVE--so the mini quilt is kind of a footnote.